Hitherto, various kinds of developing agent penetrants have been investigated for increasing the coloring property of color photographic light-sensitive materials and, in particular, a process of quickening color development by adding benzyl alcohol to a color developer has been widely used at present for the processing of color photographic materials because of accelerating a coloring effect, particularly color photographic papers.
However, in the case of using benzyl alcohol, diethylene glycol, triethylene glycol, alkanolamine, etc., must be used as the solvent therefor due to the low water solubility thereof. Since, however, the above-described compounds including benzyl alcohol have high BOD (biochemical oxygen demand) and COD (chemical oxygen demand) pollution leading values, it is preferred to avoid use of benzyl alcohol as much as possible.
Furthermore, even in the case of using the aforesaid solvent, it requires a long time to dissolve benzyl alcohol, and, hence, it is also better to avoid use of benzyl alcohol for the purpose of reducing the work load involved in preparing the solution of benzyl alcohol.
Also, when benzyl alcohol existing in a color developer is carried in a bleach bath or a blix (bleach-fix) bath which is a post-bath of the color developer, it causes the formation of the leuco dye of a cyan dye, which further causes the reduction of coloring density. Still further, when such benzyl alcohol exists in a bleaching solution or a blixing solution, it delays the washing out speed of developer components from color photographic materials, and, hence, it sometimes results in adverse influences on the stability or storability of color images of processed color photographic materials. Accordingly, it is also preferred to avoid use of benzyl alcohol for these reasons, also.
Color development is generally performed for about 3 to 4 minutes, but recently with the shortening of the time for delivering finished photographic products and the reduction of laboratory work, it has been desired to shorten the processing time for photographic materials.
On the other hand, when the development time for color photographic materials is shortened without using benzyl alcohol, which is a coloring accelerator, the coloring density is inevitably greatly reduced.
For solving the above-described problems, various color development accelerators have been described, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,950,970, 2,515,147, 2,496,903, 2,304,925, 4,038,075, 4,119,462, British Pat. Nos. 1,430,998, 1,455,413, Japanese Patent Application (OPI) Nos. 15831/78, 62450/80, 62451/80, 62452/80, 62453/80, 50536/83 and 162256/85 (the term "OPI" as used herein refers to a "published unexamined Japanese patent application"), Japanese Patent Publication Nos. 12422/76, 49728/80, etc. However, even by the use of these color development accelerators, a satisfactory coloring density has not yet been obtained.
Also, methods for incorporating color developing agents in color photographic materials are proposed as described, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,719,492, 3,342,559, 3,342,597, Japanese Patent Application (OPI) Nos. 6235/81, 16133/81, 97531/82, 83565/82, etc., but these methods have disadvantages in that the color development is delayed and the formation of fog is increased, and, thus, are not proper methods.
Furthermore, a method of using a silver chloride emulsion as described, for example, in Japanese Patent Application (OPI) Nos. 95345/83, 232342/84, 19140/85, etc., may shorten the color development time but the formation of fog is likely to increase.
As described above, a method of obtaining color images having satisfactory quality in a shortened time using a color developer containing substantially no benzyl alcohol has not yet been found.
On the other hand, methods of accelerating color development by incorporating pyrazolidone compounds in silver halide color photographic materials are described in Japanese Patent Application (OPI) Nos. 144547/82, 146236/85, 50532/83, 115438/83, 158444/85, 26339/85, 158445/85, 165651/85, etc. Also, a counterplan for reducing the concentration of benzyl alcohol in color developer is proposed in Japanese Patent Application (OPI) Nos. 50536/83 and 158446/85.
However, when the proposals described above are employed under the condition of shortening a color development time using a color developer substantially free from benzyl alcohol, the coloring property of, in particular, magenta dye, is reduced, and a satisfactory result has not been obtained.